By Eli Stokols
In less than a year since taking the helm of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt has repealed the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan and Waters of the United States rule, encouraged President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement and removed scientists dependent on EPA funding from serving on the agency’s advisory boards.
On Monday, Mr. Pruitt signaled how he plans to protect the environment in the Trump era as the EPA’s administrator. He went to Walt Disney World to highlight the theme park’s commitment to sustainability through a program that can convert into electric power 120,000 tons of food waste that would otherwise end up in landfills every year.
The Disney program, he said, shows the work of “corporate partners and communities who want to do things the right way, and find innovative ways to address issues.”
Such private-sector innovation, often in partnership with state and local governments, does more to fulfill his agency’s mission of environmental protection than the regulations he is in the process of undoing, Mr. Pruitt said in an interview. And it encapsulates his goal of shifting the agency’s regulatory power away from Washington and to the states…
…Michael Greenstone, who served as chief economist on President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers from 2009 to 2010, expressed doubt that voluntary actions by companies like Disney will do as much to reduce carbon emissions as actual policy.
“Yes, some firms will cut their emissions but relying on voluntary actions is like bringing a rubber band to a gunfight,” he said.
Mr. Pruitt’s day trip to Florida was intended to highlight companies that are making an effort.
Continue reading at The Wall Street Journal…